But who is “we”? You and I, my family, co-workers, city, region, country, race, religion, all humans on Earth? Or more?

Animals, plants, fungi, bacteria, viruses? I believe yes. We need them. And the current ecosystems need us to become responsible (although they can also recover and rebuild diversity without us).

But I think there is more. We need each other across generations. Strongly.

We need to know where we came from. Our past nature and culture. The errors and achievements of our fore-parents. Our identity extending into the past.

And today perhaps most importantly, we need to know where we are going to. We need our identity in the future.

I believe, the lack of perspectives into our future is an important cause for the current destruction of our natural inheritance. For the cruel injustice, we inflict on our children.

It is not something that would make us depraved and unhappy. Giving up some of many aspects of our wasteful, irresponsible lifestyle in exchange for a perspective into the future would make most of us happier, more complete humans. We need to live on the dreams that we can feed our children. It is the vague notion that maybe, just maybe, we are the last generation, the vague notion that perhaps it might be irresponsible to bear children into this world, which is poisoning us. Sow the seeds of freedom in your children1 instead.

I recommend the reading Laudato Si’. It is long, so just browse around. It discusses, from a religious, scientific, and general ethical standpoint many of these questions of why we are failing. EnglishGerman